Client updates /  Competition

In early September 2025, the Israeli Supreme Court issued its ruling on Youngster v. State of Israel, also known as the “Poland trips cartel case.” In this landmark ruling, the Supreme Court called for the imposition of much harsher sentences for restrictive arrangements between competitors (cartels). It also set a minimum sentence of nine months of incarceration for such offenses.

The Israel Competition Authority (ICA) published a draft consent decree with Bristol-Myers Squibb and Neopharm, requiring payments of over ILS 44 million by the companies and ILS 200,000 by a Neopharm executive, following indications of monopolistic abuse.

In July 2025, the European Competition Commission imposed a EUR 489,000 fine on Alchem International Pvt. Ltd. and its Hong Kong subsidiary for their involvement in a pharmaceutical cartel involving the active ingredient used in the manufacture of an abdominal antispasmodic medicine.

The Israel Competition Authority (ICA) conducted a thorough investigation of the S. Schestowitz Group, an Israeli company in the food and consumer goods sector, due to suspicions the company operated a cartel in the food industry in violation of the Economic Competition Law and the Law for the Promotion of Competition in the Food and Pharmacy Industries.

The US government has recorded another big win in the battle that US law enforcement agencies have been waging for years against Google.

The Israel Competition Authority (ICA) announced that as of March 31, 2025, it will begin publishing on its website a list of pending merger transactions and exemption applications for restrictive trade arrangements that are under its review.

The Knesset approved a series of legislative amendments this past July designed to promote competition in the money market – money market mutual funds, deposits and government bonds (short-term loans maturing in less than one year) – and to enable the general public to achieve higher returns on its short-term savings.

As part of a series of measures to combat the cost of living, the Israel Competition Authority’s Director General is taking broad law enforcement measures for the first time against major food suppliers for violations of the Food Law. Inter alia, the Food Law prohibits food suppliers and retailers from engaging in various commercial arrangements that could prevent small suppliers or retailers from competing. 

This is not the first time the Israel Competition Authority has imposed sanctions on companies that fail to respond adequately to its demands for data. However, this is the highest sum ever imposed for such a violation and approaches the maximum the ICA’s Director General may impose in this regard.

The Israeli Competition Director General fined MBI and company officers after they spiked the price of a life-saving drug called Leadiant by hundreds of percentage points.